Diplomacy (Civ6)
Diplomacy is the art of making relations with other civilizations in Civilization VI. It has been overhauled from previous versions of the game. It's a mechanic that evolves as eras pass, from a state of near constant warfare in ancient times, to more civil interactions in the mid and late game. First Contact When you meet a civilization for the first time both of you can exchange information about your Capitals. If this first contact happens when a unit from one civilization reaches the borders of the other, the "discovered" civilization is given the option to reveal one of its nearby cities to the "discovering" one. If it happens when a unit from one civilization meets a unit from the other, both civilizations may agree to reveal their Capitals. This first interaction causes an impression (favorable or unfavorable) in the other leader, already coloring your Relationship with him/her. Interactions Civilizations can interact with each other in many ways. Most interactions are not available at the beginning of the game, and become available as you develop your Civic culture. Some interactions are only available when you have the right relationship status with the other civilization. The Diplomacy screen shows what interactions are currently available. Diplomatic Visibility Visibility, or 'Access level', is the amount of information you receive about the actions of another civilization. There are several levels of visibility. At the first level (None) you know very little about them, you don't know their agendas or what influences your relationship. At higher levels of Visibility, you receive frequent updates about what they do. The "Access level" panel in the Diplomacy screen of a leader shows the following information: * Your current level of visibility (none, limited, open, secret or top secret). * A list of the factors that contribute to the level of Visibility you have of that leader, like trade routes established or embassies. * The kind of information you receive at this level. * What you may expect to see in the next level of visibility. Your Visibility of a civilization is improved by the following factors, which are cumulative unless otherwise noted: * Sending them a Trade Delegation or Establishing an Embassy in their capital. These two are not cumulative among them. * Having a Trade Route with them. * Being Allies with them or Having a Spy create a Listening Post in one of their cities. These two actions do not stack - unlike in the real world, you don't spy on your allies. * Researching the Printing technology increases by one level your Visibility of all civilizations. The maximum Visibility level available in the Ancient and Classical eras is 'Open'. The maximum level possible in the Medieval Era is 'Secret', whichcan be achieved by making an Alliance. In the Renaissance Era all the levels become available once the Printing technology is researched. This table lists the information provided at each level of access: Gossip items are represented as coming from a source which more or less matches what provides your current Access level to the nation. For example, if you only have a Trade Route with them, the gossips will start with 'Our traders heard that...'; while if you have an Alliance the gossip will start with 'An allied friend tells us that...'. Diplomatic Visibility is mostly independent of your relationship with a leader. Having a Delegation or Embassy improves relationships a bit, and having a very good relationship is required to create an Alliance. Other than that, Visibility and relationship are not connected. Visibility has military implications. If you attack a civilization your levels of Diplomatic visibility will be compared, and the party which has a higher level will receive a permanent +3 bonus to CS in every military encounter (this is known as 'Intel on enemy movements'). If both parties have the same level of visibility none receives the bonus. This bonus is always active during Theological Combat. Visibility is a new mechanic in Civilization VI. Delegations Civilizations can send delegations to their rivals for a fee. Delegations improve relations a bit and increase diplomatic visibility by one level. Once sent, delegations stay permanently in the target civilization. If your relationship with a rival is worse than Neutral they will not accept your delegation. When a rival contacts you to send you a delegation they mention some sort of 'gift'. If you accept their delegation you receive that 'gift' in the form of 25 . Embassies Once the Diplomatic Service Civic is developed, Delegations are replaced with Resident Embassies. An Embassy is practically the same as a Trade Delegation, just updated to the modern requirements of the diplomatic community (parties, radios, secret rooms...). They improve relations a bit and increase Visibility by one level. As with delegations, if your relationship with a rival is worse than Neutral they will not accept your embassy. Once you develop Diplomatic Service your delegations are 'revoked', and you lose all their benefits. If a rival Denounces you, they remove your Embassy or Delegation from their Capital in a sign of diplomatic reprisal. You can establish them again if your relations improve. The same happens if one of you Declare War on the other. Declaring Friendship Leaders who have a Relationship Status of Friendly can Declare Friendship 'to each other. After declaring Friendship, their Relationship Status is updated. Trading The most frequent (and maybe the most important) interaction with foreign leaders is trading. You can trade with all the leaders except the ones you're at war with. The success of the trade, however, and what they are willing to give you for something, depends a lot on your relationship. The better the relationship, the higher the chance to get a favorable trade, or to agree to take a diplomatic step. To negotiate a trade click the 'Make Deal' button in the diplomacy screen. Other leaders will also contact you and offer you deals. You may trade almost anything in the game, including (either lump sums or payments per turn), Strategic and Luxury Resources, Great Works, cities, and diplomatic agreements. The trading interface has two columns with items, the left one lists the items you have available for trading, the right one lists theirs. When you select an item for trading it moves to the upper part of the screen, beneath 'My Offer' and 'Their Offer'. You can combine items of different types to make a deal. Great Works which were recently acquired are displayed in this screen but cannot be traded. There are several ways to start a negotiation: #Select both what you want to get and what you want to give. If your rival is willing to accept the deal, the green button "'Accept Deal" is displayed. Otherwise, the button 'Make this deal more equitable' is displayed. If you click this button your rival makes a counter-offer and the button "Accept deal" is displayed. #Select just what you want to get, but not what you want to give. A button labeled 'What would it take?' is displayed. Click it and the other leader will request something in return for what you want. #Select just what you are ready to give, but not what you want to get. Two buttons are displayed, which lead to two different scenarios: ##A button labeled 'What would you give me?'. Click it and your rival will reveal what they're ready to give you in exchange for your offer. ##A button labeled 'Give gift'. Click it and you gift your items to your rival. If the leader accepts (if your relationship is very bad he might reject your gift) your relationship improves. Click the 'Nevermind' button at the top at any time to cancel the negotiations. Relationship Relationships between civilizations are complex. They're affected by your behaviour and by the goals of your rivals, called agendas. The portrait of each of your rivals in the upper right part of the screen has an icon that shows the state of relationship you have with them. In the Diplomacy screen, the Our Relationship panel shows a complete breakdown of the state of your relationships. Relationship Levels Relationships are represented by a numeric value. Positive numbers represent positive relationships and negative numbers represent negative relationships. * Allies: Allied leaders cannot declare war on each other, cannot Denounce each other, automatically share Open Borders, can make Research Agreements and Defensive Pacts. The deals you make with your allies are likely to be very favorable. Alliances can only be made between declared friends. The portraits of your allies display the Alliance icon, a flag. * Declared Friend: Declared friends cannot declare war on each other, cannot Denounce each other, can make Research Agreements. The deals you make with your declared friends are likely to be very favorable. The portraits of your declared friends display a blue smiley. Only friendly rivals can become declared friends. * Friendly: Friendly rivals think positively of you, you have a good chance of getting favorable deals with them. The portraits of friendly rivals display a green smiley. * Neutral: Your interactions with them will be standard. The leader's portrait has no icons whatsoever. * Unfriendly: Deals with unfriendly rivals tend to be unfavorable for you. You can choose to make demands of them. The portraits of unfriendly rivals display a sad yellow smiley. * Denounced: This leader has told others leaders that you have done something to offend them. Your deals with them will be unfavorable if they make them at all, but you can declare a Formal War against them and make demands. Rivals in this relationship state cannot have an Open Borders agreement. The smiley on the leader's portrait becomes red. * At War: Open hostilities have broken out between you two. You can attack or invade this leader, but you will accrue warmongering and war weariness penalties. The War icon (crossed swords) appears on the leader's portrait. Improving relationships These actions improve your relationship with a rival: * Making a favorable first impression. First impressions are determined by the first of your units your rival sees. The effect eventually wears off. * Fulfilling one of their agendas. * Sending a delegation or establishing an embassy: '''The relationship improves by +3 and +5 respectively. * '''Offering a favorable trade. Giving gifts is included here. * Having''' a Trade Route with them (it doesn't matter whether established by you or by them, +2 relationship). * '''Making an Open Borders agreement: Improves the relationship by 3. * Satisfying their agendas. Several significant benefits. * Having the same Government they have. * Fulfilling a diplomatic promise you made to them. Your rival asks you to do or not to do something, like not settling near their borders. If you agree to their request and keep your word for many turns you receive a notification that you have fulfilled your promise, and you get a diplomatic boost. * Liberating a city. Grants a positive bonus which seems permanent. * Fighting a common enemy. An enemy is any third party with which your rival is at odds. This may mean that they've Denounced them, or that they are currently at war with them. * Being Friends or Allies with a third party they're also Friends with. * Declaring Friendship. * Making an Alliance with them. * Joining an Emergency with them (only Rise and Fall). Worsening relationships These actions worsen your relationship with your rivals: * Making an unfavorable first impression: Penalty between -1 and -4. * Going against one of their agendas. Penalties vary, but are usually very significant. * Declaring War. The penalty wears out after you make peace. * Occupying one of their cities. This penalty never dissipates while you occupy a city of a rival. * Warmongering. Leaders with the "Darwinist" agenda and some other specific agendas, such as Gorgo (who likes war), ignore Warmongering. * Moving military units near their borders persistently: -2 penalty. This is seen as an act of aggression. It prompts a request from their leader to remove your troops from their borders. * Settling in lands they consider theirs: -3 permanent penalty. When you do it they ask you to stop settling nearby. * Becoming Friends or Allies with a third party they're in bad relations with. * Having a different Government. * Denouncing. You get a penatly both when you Denounce a rival and when they Denounce you. * Breaking a diplomatic promise you made -6 penalty. The penalty for breaking a promise is the same as the one for refusing to make a promise. However, breaking a diplomatic promise gives your rival a Casus Belli against you. * Refusing to make a promise: -6 penalty. Ignoring a promise request counts as a refusal. * Performing an espionage mission against them, and getting caught:''' -5 permanent penalty. This prompts them to request that you stop spying them. * '''Converting their Holy City. Permanent penalty. * Being close to winning. Approaching victory gives you a penalty that grows stronger as you get closer to victory. Diplomatic promises Your rivals can demand many promises from you: That you don't settle near their borders, remove military units from their borders, don't convert their cities, don't spy on them, etc. A diplomatic promise lasts 15 turns, after which it is considered 'fulfilled'. After that you can re-engage in the activity that prompted your rival to demand the promise without incurring a penalty. The promise not to move military units near a player is broken even if you violate their border after a war is declared by that player. You may also demand promises from other leaders. These follow the same rules as promises you make. If your rival breaks a promise, you gain a standard Casus Belli against them, which allows you to declare a Formal War. Agendas All AI-controlled rivals are governed by two agendas, which affects how they view other civilizations, and governs their opinions and playstyles. The first one is a set agenda based on their historical traits: for example the pacifist Gandhi has the Peacekeeper agenda, likes leaders that don't go to war and won't go to war easily himself; while Hojo Tokimune has the Bushido agenda, and likes 'a strong soul in a strong body' (basically the combination of strong , and military). The second Agenda of each leader is hidden, and is randomly assigned to further modify their behavior. Unlike the Leader Agenda, Hidden Agendas don't become clear so easily and must be uncovered through gossip or espionage. Gathering storm introduces a third agenda, which appears as each nation develops the Nationalism civic. This agenda is special, and is oriented towards reacting to other nations' progress towards victory (mainly aiming to deter them). Demands When you have an unfriendly relationship with a nation, you may demand stuff from them. This may be described as a ruder, more one-sided trade, where you select the items you wish from them without offering anything in return. If you are much stronger than they are militarily, there is a good chance they will grant your request, at the expense of additional worsening of your relationship. You cannot make demands of Declared Friends or Allies. Discuss On the other hand, you may politely request another nation to change their practices towards you after you discover that they are doing something you don't like, such as spying on you or converting your cities to their Religion. After clicking the Discuss button, you may select the request you wish to make, and hope that they will agree to grant it. If they do, you may expect the behavior to cease, and if it doesn't you will gain a special Casus Belli against them! Denouncing When you (or they) are fed up with someone, you may make the extreme diplomatic step of denouncing them. This will immediately worsen relations with the denounced party, and block a number of diplomatic steps you may take (such as asking for Open Borders). Trade Delegations and Embassies from both Capitals are expelled, and you won't be able to offer to renew them until the denunciation has expired. However, 5 turns later, you will gain the Formal War Casus Belli against them! You cannot denounce Declared Friends or Allies - you will have to wait until these states expire. Use denouncing when you prepare to go to war with someone you have no other Casus Belli against. Denouncing will also give you a diplomacy bonus with any leaders who dislike the leader you denounced, and may help set the stage for a Joint War. Otherwise, denouncing brings more harm than good, unless you don't care much about what they think of you, of course. Denouncing also has a duration of 30 turns, after which its effect expires. Diplomatic Agreements There are a number of Agreements that leaders may enter into. All of them have limited duration of 30 turns, after which they have to be renewed. Different types of Agreements become available with Civic research, and will be described below. As mentioned above, sealing Agreements is much like making a trade deal, and will depend a lot on your relationship with the other nation. Joint War This is the first diplomatic agreement that becomes available after developing the Foreign Trade Civic. After all, it is most important to secure partners when you go to conquer your neighbors! When a Joint War is proposed you have to select a third party which will be the target of the war (note that you may not find all leaders you've currently met in the list!). If the other nation agrees, both will immediately Declare Formal War against that third party, even if you have no Casus Belli against it. Note, however, that you cannot start other types of Casus Belli wars via this agreement - you'll have to be content with the military help the other nation will provide. Note that you will get no Warmonger penalties with your 'helper' for anything you do in this war; you will get normal penalties with all other leaders, though. You cannot offer Joint Wars to a leader who has Denounced you, or who you have Denounced. Join Ongoing War In Rise and Fall you can also propose to Join an Ongoing War with another leader who is already at war with a third party, or propose to him or her to join a war you're engaged in. You will then be prompted to select the war you want to join. This option becomes available at the same time as Joint War (i.e. with the Foreign Trade civic) and works much the same way. Open Borders After developing the Early Empire Civic your nation becomes more careful about who passes their borders, and starts patrolling them regularly, and throwing out invaders. At the same time, your government understands the importance of access to others' territory, and gains the ability to request and grant Open Borders to others. Open Borders allows units to enter the territory of the nation which granted access via this treaty. They may also use the Road network there as if it were their own. Finally, thanks to the free movement, your nation's enjoys a +25% boost. Open Borders may be requested, or granted, as part of a Trade deal. Note that both actions are separate! That means that if you grant someone Open Borders, he or she won't necessarily grant you Open Borders in return. Granting Open Borders without requesting anything in return is a nice way to improve relations. Open Borders cannot be offered to or requested from a leader who has Denounced you, or whom you have Denounced. Alliance The highest form of "friendship" between two nations becomes possible after developing the Civil Service Civic. However, you can only enter an Alliance with a nation you're Declared Friends with. As Allies, you automatically share Open Borders, and you may make Research Agreements and Defensive Pacts. (Note that you will not automatically declare war against a third party without a Defensive Pact!) Additionally, you share visibility with your ally, which means you can see everything their cities and units see. Of course, you cannot take hostile action against an Ally. Alliances in Rise and Fall Expansion Pack In Rise and Fall, Alliances have been greatly expanded. First, there are now five different types of Alliances: Research, Military, Economic, Cultural, and Religious, each of which has its own specific benefits. Second, as the alliance continues over time, the Alliance itself levels up (by accruing Alliance Points) and unlocks more powerful bonuses (there are 3 levels for each). Each alliance type is unique; that means that each nation may maintain a particular type of Alliance with only one other nation at a time. For example, if you intend to enter into a Cultural Alliance with civilization A, you cannot do so if either you or they already have a Cultural Alliance with a third party. You will either have to wait until the Alliances expire, or choose a different Alliance type. Another difference with vanilla Civilization VI is that allies don't automatically gain Shared visibility. You still gain visibility on units, but territorial visibility will only enter into effect in other circumstances. This system encourages entering into Alliances and preserving them for as long as possible - this way you will be able to build up trust with your partner nation and level up the Alliance to reap its greatest benefits! Of course, in order to do this you will have to avoid offending your partner, let alone declaring war on them. Remember that Alliances are only possible if you're on the friendliest of terms with a particular leader! Research Agreement This deal becomes possible after researching Scientific Theory. After that, two nations who are either Declared Friends or Allies may enter into a Research Agreement and work together towards a particular technology which you both have unlocked, but neither has acquired yet. After a set amount of turns (which depends on their combined output), both players will gain a boost for this tech. However, if any of them discovers the tech beforehand for whatever reason, the other will immediately gain the boost as well, thus terminating the agreement. Research Agreements are particularly lucrative for a player who lags behind technologically, but has befriended or is Allies with another, more technologically advanced nation. While an existing Research Agreement is in place, you may not start another one with that nation! Think carefully about which technology you want to get when making the agreement. In Rise and Fall, Research Agreements have been phased out and replaced with Research Alliances. Defensive Pact In the latest stages of the game, after developing Mobilization, it becomes possible for Allied players to sign Defensive Pacts. When a rival Declares war on one of the signatories, the other signatory enters the war automatically to defend the one that received the war declaration. Defensive pacts are very useful for players with a weak military and a powerful ally. Warfare And, as usual in a Civilization game, war can be declared, guns will start firing, cities will start burning and the innocent will cry for the greed and ambition of their leaders! If they are alive, that is. Warmongering Unlike in vanilla Civilization V, attitudes towards warmongering change through the eras. Warmongering is defined via points, which accumulate with foreign leaders each time you do something warlike. The base points for such actions increase with each passing era: in the , the warmongering penalty is non-existent, and does not become significant until the . After that, warmongering becomes a real diplomatic pain in the butt. Accumulated penalties will slowly decline each turn, until they disappear altogether...unless, of course, you do something to renew them. Note that warmongering penalties don't seem to accumulate equally with all leaders. For example, leaders you haven't met yet will be much more forgiving about your past wars. But Civilization is not a pacifist game, and it is possible for players to wage war without irritating other leaders too much. The way to do this are the revolutionary Casus Belli, causes which justify wars in the eyes of others. For more on them, continue reading. Casus Belli In Civilization VI you may choose to launch the usual war without any warning (now known as Surprise War), surprising your enemy or even backstabbing a peaceful neighbor, and thus enraging the 'international community'. Or you may choose to use a Casus Belli and declare justified wars, which decreases the diplomatic penalties based on how "just" the war is. After the Medieval Era you should use Casus Belli as much as possible, or you risk accumulating huge Warmonger penalties with all players. There are many different Casus Belli, each of which unlocks with Civic development. You should get acquainted with them and use them as much as possible. For better descriptions, refer to the main article above. Diplomatic Victory In Civilization VI: Gathering Storm, the World Congress will be added, enabling a civ to achieve victory via accumulating sufficient Diplomatic Victory points. Videos File:CIVILIZATION VI - How To Make Diplomacy Work File:Civilization VI- Rise and Fall - Devs Play Scotland (Alliances Deep Dive)|Sarah Darney and Ed Beach demonstrate the Alliances system in Civilization VI: Rise and Fall. Category:Game concepts (Civ6)